Vietnamese Women at War: Fighting for Ho Chi Minh and the Revolution (Modern War Studies)

Rating:
Summary: The History of Vietnam According to Whom?
Review: Women have always figured prominently in Vietnamese history and I approached this work with a great deal of positive anticipation. I was looking for something akin to Bruce Myle's Night Witches. This was an excellent account of Russian women combat pilots in WWII. Unfortunately Taylor's book fails on several fronts and I found its value to be very limited.

Probably the first thing that stands out is the so-called photograph identified as that of a Captain William Robinson, allegedly shot down in the 1972-73 Christmas bombing. On page 110, Professor Taylor writes that this captain returned to Vietnam in 1985 to apologize. This same picture is identified in Rochester and Kiley's book Honor Bound as a helicopter NCO named William A. Robinson who was shot down on 20 September 1965 (pages 141-142). This would be the same A1C helicopter mechanic who was awarded the enlisted Air Force Cross for that mission. Robinson's team was attempting to rescue an American pilot when they were shot down. Nor can I find any verification of Mr. Robinson's "apology" in 1985. Discrepancies such as these do not do much to lend credibility to the rest of the text. What is particularly disturbing is the fact that Professor Taylor seems to have accepted the photograph presented by the Women's Museum in Hanoi at face value. It is next to impossible that a 22-year-old would have received the rank of captain anyway. Given several documented incidents of individuals passing themselves off as POW's and making fake apologies, one would have expected some documentation of an attempt to verify this information.

Taylor indicates that she does not speak Vietnamese and that her interviews were done in the presence of government interpreters. One wonders how candid these interviews would be and in fact Professor Taylor indicates a certain reluctance on the part of those interviewed attributing it to Confucian principles of "right relationships" rather than the presence of government interpreters. On this issue, I remain skeptical.

I have traveled to a few communist countries (Russia, China and Vietnam and the former East Germany). My experience has been a consistent pattern of enthusiastic efforts on the part of communists to correct me on points of history that are simply not credible. And I have no doubt these people genuinely believed what they were telling me and they were certainly not reticent. This was not the case in rare private meetings with "average citizens".

If you are interested in how the North Vietnamese have reconstructed their history to fit political goals or are interested in the mechanics of propaganda, then this book may be of some interest. I have no doubt there were many patriotic North Vietnamese women who fought bravely, suffered and sacrificed much, particularly under French colonialism and later under Diem. Unfortunately their stories are subsumed in the same sort of revisionism seen in the Cultural Revolution in China. It is likely that the real story of women's participation in the Vietnam War will have to wait until Vietnam can become a freer society than it is today.

Rating:
Summary: The History of Vietnam According to Whom?
Review: Women have always figured prominently in Vietnamese history and I approached this work with a great deal of positive anticipation. I was looking for something akin to Bruce Myle's Night Witches. This was an excellent account of Russian women combat pilots in WWII. Unfortunately Taylor's book fails on several fronts and I found its value to be very limited.

Probably the first thing that stands out is the so-called photograph identified as that of a Captain William Robinson, allegedly shot down in the 1972-73 Christmas bombing. On page 110, Professor Taylor writes that this captain returned to Vietnam in 1985 to apologize. This same picture is identified in Rochester and Kiley's book Honor Bound as a helicopter NCO named William A. Robinson who was shot down on 20 September 1965 (pages 141-142). This would be the same A1C helicopter mechanic who was awarded the enlisted Air Force Cross for that mission. Robinson's team was attempting to rescue an American pilot when they were shot down. Nor can I find any verification of Mr. Robinson's "apology" in 1985. Discrepancies such as these do not do much to lend credibility to the rest of the text. What is particularly disturbing is the fact that Professor Taylor seems to have accepted the photograph presented by the Women's Museum in Hanoi at face value. It is next to impossible that a 22-year-old would have received the rank of captain anyway. Given several documented incidents of individuals passing themselves off as POW's and making fake apologies, one would have expected some documentation of an attempt to verify this information.

Taylor indicates that she does not speak Vietnamese and that her interviews were done in the presence of government interpreters. One wonders how candid these interviews would be and in fact Professor Taylor indicates a certain reluctance on the part of those interviewed attributing it to Confucian principles of "right relationships" rather than the presence of government interpreters. On this issue, I remain skeptical.

I have traveled to a few communist countries (Russia, China and Vietnam and the former East Germany). My experience has been a consistent pattern of enthusiastic efforts on the part of communists to correct me on points of history that are simply not credible. And I have no doubt these people genuinely believed what they were telling me and they were certainly not reticent. This was not the case in rare private meetings with "average citizens".

If you are interested in how the North Vietnamese have reconstructed their history to fit political goals or are interested in the mechanics of propaganda, then this book may be of some interest. I have no doubt there were many patriotic North Vietnamese women who fought bravely, suffered and sacrificed much, particularly under French colonialism and later under Diem. Unfortunately their stories are subsumed in the same sort of revisionism seen in the Cultural Revolution in China. It is likely that the real story of women's participation in the Vietnam War will have to wait until Vietnam can become a freer society than it is today.